Adele's Auckland concert nearly killed my career
A rough day at the office...
Kings Of Leon, London Grammar and bung old Backstreet Boys. These acts have one thing in common: they’re coming to New Zealand over the next 12 months. As international touring’s gears slowly start spinning again, let’s look back at big gigs. What worked, what didn’t, what we miss about them, and what we don’t. Today, the Adele concert that very nearly broke me. Let’s go.
Rain was forecast. I’d packed a jacket. But it was March. It was 19 degrees. We parked our car and I walked to Mt Smart Stadium in a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers.
No one was predicting a hypothermia-level weather event.
Back in 2017, Adele had done something special. She’d sold out Mt Smart Stadium three times in a row, the first person to do so. She set multiple other records, including the most concert tickets sold in New Zealand in a single day. One of her gigs sold out in just 23 minutes. Clearly, Kiwis love Adele.
Ed Sheeran would go on to break some of those records just a year or so later, but Adele’s sales feat was a big deal at the time. The hype was huge.
She was set to play on March 23, 25 and 26, and at NZ Herald, where I was working at the time, we decided to do something we’d never done before.
We would live-blog every single minute of every single concert.
For the first two concerts, I wasn’t involved. But on the third night, I was drafted into the live blog roster. I was in prime position to report, with a spot positioned right under the giant space-age stage that had been erected in the middle of the stadium, on the same field The Warriors lose most of their games.
It was so ridiculously impressive. I mean, look at this thing. Bono was probably sitting in his living room seething with envy.
I’ve been to so many shows at Mt Smart Stadium. I’ve seen U2’s huge wide-screen TV and Taylor Swift’s giant snake and a dozen or more Big Day Outs.
But I’ve never seen a supersized space station set up on that field.
It was an incredible sight to take in. Fans were spread out on chairs in neat rows, crammed into the stands as far as the eye could see. All of them seemed to be glaring at us as we walked towards the best seats in the house, standing inside the stage within spitting distance of the superstar who was about to perform.
As the show’s 8pm kick off time loomed, the clouds that had been threatening all evening started to do more than spit. When Adele launched into Hello with that towering voice of hers, it caused the heavens to open up.
Not just a few droplets, or a sprinkling of rain, but a full blown downpour.
I got my jacket out and threw it on, but was futile. Within minutes, I was soaked to the bone. This rain came in sideways. It got into everything.
During all of this, I was trying to file updates back to the newsroom. That’s a tricky thing to do when your phone is wet, your hands are soaked, and there is water in your eyes. You can’t type and swipe in a downpour.
Here are some actual excerpts of the things I was sending to my poor counterparts tasked with deciphering my coded messages.
Cokplete? Electocuted? WTF?
About five songs in, everything was utterly soaked. The stage was covered in water. The crowd was completely drenched. Adele’s ball gown was dripping. At one point she looked up at the sky and laughed. I took off my shoes and tipped out the water. She put on a poncho and it did nothing.
I remember Adele sweeping around her circular stage, refusing to give into the torrential downpour, singing her heart out as she stormed towards me.
I got my camera in position. I lined it up perfectly. This was my big moment. Adele, in the rain, and my name on the Herald’s front page photo in tomorrow’s paper.
I snapped the photo. This is what I got…
It’s a shocker, but it’s symbolic of how my night was going. A friend of mine took the snap that ended up on that front page instead.
My night was about to get much worse.
About halfway through the show, my teeth started chattering. My body convulsed. It’s something I haven’t experienced at a concert before - or since. I couldn’t stop shaking. I stopped filing to the Herald’s live blog. I couldn’t operate my phone. I couldn’t type. My hands were frozen. I couldn’t do anything.
All I could do was shake.
Worried, my wonderful wife dragged me out of the rain and up to the food trucks. At the White Lady, we ordered burgers and fries. I inhaled them. Then we grabbed hot chocolates and thawed out under the stands. We clutched warm cups while taking in the second half of the show.
Near the end, Adele started to talk. She talked for a long time. This wasn’t a sermon full of your average concert cliches. She had important stuff to say. Stuff about the show, stuff about the future, stuff about her career.
I dragged my still soaked phone from my still soaked pocket and attempted to write down what Adele was saying.
“Touring isn't something I'm good at,” she said. “Applause makes me feel a bit vulnerable. I don't know if I will ever tour again. The only reason I've toured is you. I'm not sure if touring is my bag.”
Here’s her full, tearful, four-minute statement…
These were big words, straight from one of the world’s biggest artists. She was going to stop touring. This. Was. It. I typed as much as I could, as fast as I could, and fired those quotes off to the newsroom.
Remember, I was still shaking, and everything was still saturated. I didn’t know if I’d got those quotes right. I’d tapped them out in a pre-hypothermic haze. A rogue ‘Cokplete’ might have snuck into the mix. I just didn’t know.
You probably already know what happened next. Those Adele quotes went viral, almost instantly. Here was the biggest star in the world saying she may never tour again. And here’s muggins me, having my words quoted in The Guardian and The Daily Mail and literally every other online newspaper around the world.
When I got into work the next day, I was terrified. Had I heard Adele correctly? Did I transcribe those quotes right? I put off listening back to the concert’s audio recording. What if I’d screwed them up? Maybe I’d tapped complete gibberish into my phone while shaking like a leaf.
That could easily be the end of my career.
As it turned out, I’d got it mostly right. After two shows at Wembley Stadium, Adele kept her word and stopped touring, and I managed to keep my job and my career. Phew.
Only one of us went on to get Bantu knots in our hair though.
Everything else you need to worry about this week…
Everyone’s talking about Bo Burnham’s new Netflix special Inside. Right now, the actor and comic’s quarantine musical comedy has an overwhelming 98 per cent approval rating on Metacritic. Trust me, you need to see this just for Feeling Like Shit, a song that manages to sum lockdown up in a brilliantly pithy 90 seconds.
Sweet Tooth, the Netflix comic book caper shot in New Zealand in the second half of last year, is also getting rave reviews. “The performances are sturdy, the action scenes thrilling and Jeff Grace’s score conveys the right notes of adventure and melodrama,” said THR. It also took the No. 1 Netflix spot over the weekend.
Young Rock, the Dwayne Johnson vehicle starring a whole bunch of Pacific Island actors from New Zealand, is finally screening on Neon, just a few months late. You can read my interview with the show’s lead, Stacey Leilua, here.
Loki, the big budget show starring my favourite two-faced Marvel character, begins screening on Disney+ tomorrow. Reviews are very, very good.
On Friday, there’s a lot of new music to sink your teeth into. Grunge rebels Garbage have a new record out, as do the Atlanta rap trio Migos and pop sell outs Maroon 5. I’m putting money on Sleater-Kinney topping all of those…
Last, but not least, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is released for the Playstation 5 on Friday. I’d love to tell you how great the latest instalment of the box-bashing platformer is, but my thoughts are embargoed. I’ll have plenty to say closer to the time so let me just say this for now: you need this game in your life. It’s insane.
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